Passion's Killing Floor

Danni and I were currently at the mall. She had called me earlier claiming she needed to get away from her boyfriend for a while --again. They’d had yet another fight and whenever they had a fight, she had to go shopping -had to- or so she insisted. She always ended up spending way too much at the shops -which believe it or not, was the main reason they fought all the time.

“And he was just so mad and I didn’t do anything, y’know? I mean, I know I spend money on things he finds ‘useless’,” she said, holding her fingers up to quote the word, “but that’s why it’s my money, not his. I swear, he just has to find something to argue with me about,” she said, letting out a sigh at the end. I was hardly paying her attention, I was too busy thinking about my own, failing, love life. And I’d heard this spiel all before.

“Ada, are you listening?” she sighed, waving a hand in front of my face. “God, I know this is boring but spare me, please. Anyway, have you ever thought about signing up on a dating site?”

I fake gagged and turned to her, “No. Never.”

“You really should. You’re almost what, thirty? I know the perfect one for you, you need to look for someone or you’ll be single forever.”

“Like I haven’t been looking, Danni! You know how hard it is to find a date anymore? Sure, when we were sixteen it was easy, but I’ve already passed twenty-five and our looks go down after then, I’m thirty. It’s not that easy to find a date. Most people are married by now and starting families.”

“That is exactly why this dating site is perfect for you,” she said loudly, flailing her arms about. “Lots of people your age are on, just try it, please.”

“I’m not keen on the idea,” I said in a clipped tone.

“Oh please, whether you say ‘yes’ or not, you know I’m going to sign you up anyway, right?”

I turned to glare at her, stopping in the middle of the mall. She looked at me innocently and started walking again. I quickly jogged to keep up with her, bags swinging against my legs.

“I’m coming home with you, we’re setting up an account.”

I threw my head back and groaned, tempted to stomp my feet on the ground like a child. I knew it’d get me nowhere but it would help with wanting to punch Danni in the face.

“Stop bugging me about getting a boyfriend.”

“No. I’m making you an account.”

“I won’t use it.”

“I’ll force you.”

She grasped my arm tightly and pulled me through the mall towards the exit, all the while saying how it wasn’t illegal to force me to use a site, I can’t call the cops, I would enjoy this, trust her. Somehow, I highly doubt this, but I was getting curious.



“Okay, so here we have this all up. Now we just need your picture,” she moved the mouse pointer towards the ‘upload’ button but I grabbed her hand quickly before she could.

“If I’m doing this, the guy has to earn his right to see my face. I don’t want someone talking to me just because of looks.”

She moved her hand away, “Well, alright. So here, take this survey and it will bring up a list of people who have similar answers and that you could be compatible with.”

“I’m sure we’re compatible,” sarcasm dripping from my voice. “But I’ll do anything for you to shut up about men and I.”

I pushed her chair, and her, aside and rolled my chair in front of the computer. The questions were typical ones but soon got more personal; “what do you want in a relationship?” “what kind of relationship are you looking for?”. At last I got to the end and clicked ‘finish’. It took a few minutes but eventually ten men popped up on my screen. I searched through all of their profiles, trying to know a bit more about them, even though I felt the need to reject some because they looked bad -don’t make me feel guilty. They all seemed like nice men, but only one of them really stood out the most to me.

He had no profile picture, like myself, so I had no idea what to expect -should we ever meet. He was two years older than myself and his job was marked as musician. His ‘about me’ was brief, funny, but sweet, he didn’t let on too much, which peaked my interest some more -as many of the other men seemed to write their entire life stories out on their profiles. This man even lived in the same district as me.

“Dan, what do you do when you think you’ve found a person you want to talk to?” I asked her, feeling my cheeks redden just from admitting I wanted to try to talk to someone. I could hear the smirk on her face.

“Send ‘em a message, sooner or later they’ll do the same because you’ve popped up in their matches as well. So just say ‘hi’ or something.”

“Mm, seems simple enough. He says he’s a musician, but there’s no specified band or artist name. I’ve got the urge to just bluntly ask about.”

“Well what is his name?” she asked, rolling her chair up beside mine to look at the screen. “We could search him.”

“It just says Ville, no specific last name. I guess we’ll just have to learn by talking, won’t we? What a bugger,” I said sarcastically.

“Well, get to talking! Send a message, maybe you’ll be lucky and he’ll be online.”

“With my luck, I doubt it,” I told her as my fingers went across the keys, typing my message to this man.

“Stop being so negative. It might come back to bite you in the ass one day.”

“Good for it, just another to go with the collection starting there.”

She slapped me on the back of the head, causing a mini slapping fight to start while I sent the message. Finally, I clicked ‘send’, still bating away Danni’s hands, erasing all chances for second thoughts and backing out.

“I get to say ‘I told you so’ when he’s on,” she said, dramatically crossing her arms across her chest.

“Well, just because he might be, doesn’t mean I’ll be. I’m not going to sit and wait for a reply from a man I’ve never met. Besides, if he’s interested in starting anything, he’ll wait patiently for my reply.”

I logged out of the site and shut down the browser, turning around in my chair to face Danni. I stared at her, going through my things, like she didn’t already know what I owned.

“So are you staying here tonight or do you need me to drive you back home?” I asked her, picking at some dead skin around my nails.

“Well, I’d like to stay, but I need to talk to him. We can hang out a little longer, though. I’m not that eager to go home just yet.”

“Good, then you’ll not mind going to get something to eat with me. I’m starving.”

I got up and retrieved my jacket from the chair, grabbing my car keys and my wallet from the side table.

“Since when are you never starving?” she joked, but followed anyway. I was already hoping to get her to leave so I could talk to this mystery man without her breathing over my shoulder every second.

I hated to admit it, but Danni was right, I liked this site and I liked the thought that someone out there might want to talk to me, they might think that I was the one they were meant to be with. But now I’m getting ahead of myself, I’m still single, too early to start thinking about marrying the person I haven’t even talked to yet.